PLANS AND PROGRESS

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT PAIGNTON PICTURE HOUSE?

Paignton Picture House will be fully restored, uncovering and celebrating unique architectural features such as our mosaic floor in the ground floor foyer, original ticket offices, ornate plasterwork and Art Deco lighting. Significant structural interventions to the auditorium floor and the complete re-roofing of the auditorium will give the building a long-term future.

Our visitors will enjoy a café on the ground floor in an impressive foyer and a new community space on the second floor which has never been open to the public. The auditorium will function as a multi-use space.

The building will become fully accessible, with attractive ramped terrace to the front and a small extension for a lift to the upper floors.

It will also be an exemplar of how to retrofit environmental solutions in a Grade II* listed building, including heat pumps, external insulation, bespoke secondary glazing and solar panels, helping us in our journey to become net zero.

Our future

Paignton Picture House will offer you a mix of classic, mainstream and arthouse films, as well as films which aim to educate, challenge beliefs and improve inclusion.

It will also be home to a wide range of community events and activities, as well as live performances. We will continue the work with the community to shape the Paignton Picture House’s artistic and activities programme.

Engaging with arts, culture and heritage is proven to improve our health and wellbeing. Making sure everyone can access Paignton Picture House is incredibly important to us and we plan to hold relaxed screenings for people with sensory needs or dementia, as well as subtitled, audio description and ‘bring your baby’ screenings.

Restoring Paignton Picture House is so much more than saving this beautiful building. We want to play a big part in improving the local environment and supporting regeneration in our local economy. We will provide training and development opportunities for young people, new job opportunities, a stronger cultural tourism offering and encourage further investment in culture and heritage locally.